Hunter's Season: Elder Races, Book 4 (13 page)

 
He was silent for a long, thoughtful moment. Then he brushed her braid aside and pressed a kiss to the nape of her neck. “The chances of such a thing would be outrageously rare, you know,” he said gently. “And while the good Dr. Telemar is no doubt highly proficient at her job, she is but one physician and the world is filled with many strange and different magics.”

“I know,” she whispered.

He pulled her into his arms. “Even if we were so lucky to have an item of Inanna’s working in our lives, no, I do not believe the gods can or would make us act against our natures or inclinations. Our free will is one of the primal Powers after all. Inanna may give us the opportunity for love, but it’s our choice whether or not we take that opportunity, and love is what we make of it.”

She said in a low voice, “I just find it hard to believe that you might—you might want me.”

He turned her around and stared into her eyes. “Xanthe, you are the most beautiful surprise in my life. I hardly noticed you at first. You carry the quiet of a river with a still surface that runs very deep. I found that the more I looked at you, the more I saw—and now the more I see of you, the more beautiful you become and the more I want you.” He paused then said deeply, “I’ve never wanted anyone the way I have grown to want you.”

Her trembling deepened as she listened to him. Overcome, she laid her hand against his lean cheek. “Me neither.”

He smiled at her, slow and intimate, as his hands drifted gently, gently to the front of her shirt. He gave her plenty of time to say something, to object or pull away, as he teased open the top button, then a second one. Her breathing quickened as she watched his long, clever fingers work the material open. When she glanced up at him, she saw that his breathing had quickened also.

Her shirt came unfastened and he pulled the edges open, gazing down at her breasts. She was slim everywhere, muscles sleek and strong under pale, smooth skin. Her breasts were high and slight, the pale pink nipples pebbling in the open air.

He touched the swelling, velvet soft skin of her breast with shaking, gentle hands, and brushed the extremely sensitive jut of one nipple with the back of his fingers. Sensation and emotion coursed through her, the small pleasure brought to an extreme by the awareness that he was the one who touched her with such care.

She looked up at his dear face, both noble and kind, and surprised an expression of vulnerability. He said, very low, “I have not been with anyone since my wife died. I felt dead inside for so long.”

Compassion wrenched her. She circled his wrists loosely with her hands. “We don’t have to do this, Aubrey, if you’re not ready.”

“Yes, we do.” His eyes blazed. “She took so much from me. I will not lose any more of my life to her. For a long time, I didn’t see how I could learn to trust someone again. Until you.”

Tears burned at the back of her eyes. “I would never hurt you. Never. I’ll kill anyone who tries.”

His clenched expression softened into a tender smile. He cupped her face and whispered, “I believe you.”

She pulled his hair loose from the tie that held it back, and the long raven strands fell about his lean face as he bent his head to kiss her. Starting out light and tender, the caress rapidly escalated until he gripped the back of her head and dug, groaning, into her open, inviting mouth.

Need for him throbbed low in her body. She pulled at his shirt until the buttons scattered across the floor then ran her hands hungrily across his hard, lean chest. He snaked an arm around her and yanked her against him, until they were hip to hip. As she felt the full length of his erection against her pelvis, she made an animal noise and rubbed against him.

Still kissing her, he pushed her, back and back, and she obeyed blindly until she came up against the table. He nudged her to sit and he tore off the rest of her clothes while she yanked his trousers open and reached greedily for his penis. It was hard, thick and beautifully made, silken skin stretched over stiffened flesh. Staring at his face, she fingered the length of his cock and stroked him, while he closed his eyes and swallowed hard. He pushed at her hands with his hips, and she pumped him slowly, losing herself in the moment of giving him pleasure.

His voice turned guttural, he said, “Stop.”

She muttered a protest as he pulled out of her grip, and she reached for him again, but he brushed her seeking hands out of the way and pushed her back onto the table. Once she understood what he wanted, she lay back, her spine arched and torso stretched out on display for him as her legs spilled over the edge.

He froze, one hand planted on the table beside her waist, breathing hard as he stared down at her. Some strong emotion played over his face. Worried, she reached up to touch his lips. “What is it?”

He whispered from the back of his throat, “It just happened again. You’re even lovelier than ever.”

She could tell there was no barrier in him anywhere. He looked at her, totally bared and open, and she knew what he meant, for he had never looked so beautiful to her. She murmured, “Come inside.”

He shook his head. “Not yet. Soon.”

He came down over her, resting his weight on his elbows as he traced the line of her collarbone with his tongue. His heartbeat thudded hard and fast against her breast. She hooked her heels on the on the edge of the table, cradling him between her legs and murmuring incoherently as she stroked his hair. It was impossible to love him more than she did, impossible. Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes and soaked into her hair as he worked his way down to her breasts. Eyes closed, he suckled first at one nipple then the other, teasing her sensitive flesh lightly and then drawing hard, so that her clitoris throbbed in agonizing response and she cried out, clawing at his shoulders in urgent, wordless demand.

Still suckling, he worked one hand between their bodies and fingered the soft petals of her sex, drawing out moisture and rubbing his cock against her. She was so slick with arousal, she felt the wetness coating him.

He pushed steady and gentle until the thick, broad head of his penis slipped in, and he stopped just long enough that she pulled at his hair and sobbed out, “Don’t tease me right now.”

At that he threw back his head. His face was twisted; he looked transformed, outside of himself. A growl wrenched out of him, and in one convulsive move he sheathed himself inside of her.

In, in, in, he was all the way in. She cried out, gripping him tightly with her inner muscles, while she raised her legs and wrapped them around his torso.

His hoarse, panting breath was like a bellows in her ear, and his long hair covered her face. He shook all over. She hugged him with her whole body and soul, fiercely, stroking the back of his head with one hand while she rubbed his back.

“Tell me you’re all right,” she whispered, growing anxious as he held so still.

Tell me you won’t regret this.

He looked down at her and smiled, his face filled with tenderness and sharp passion. He said, “I’ve never been better. You feel like a wet silk fist. Gods—Xanthe—”

She tightened on him harder as he slid out, and he shuddered hard and drove back in. He pulled out again, excruciatingly slow. Unable to wait, she mewled and thrust her hips up, impaling herself on him. His big body jerked as he gasped. He put a hand between them again; she felt him probing for her clitoris as he fucked her. Something came out of her mouth, an uncontrolled string of words. She had no idea what she said. She was on fire everywhere, everywhere. It blazed from the point of his entry, the unbearably gorgeous pressure of his fingers on exactly the right place.

“Oh shit,” he said.

He twisted in her arms. Inside, she felt him begin to pulse as he lost control. Then that desire, that sweetest pain she felt for no one but him, peaked like a starburst. She cried out as her own climax rippled through her. He ground against her, shuddering.

Silence, their passion released. She cradled him as he rested his forehead on her shoulder. The table was uncomfortably hard on her spine, and she would not have moved for the world. With her fingers, she circled the slight knob of bone at the base of his nape and traced what she could reach of the long line of scar across his back, soaking up every sensual piece of evidence she could get of him.

I’ll not ever forget this moment,
she thought.
Not ever, not even if I live for a very, very long time.

Eventually the discomfort of his position forced him to move. He pushed himself up on one hand, wincing as his back muscles seized up in protest and his softened penis slid out of her.

“Well, this is inelegant,” he said through gritted teeth.

The gorgeous dazed look left her face, and she laughed, her gaze sympathetic. “It’s that damn wound on your back, isn’t it?”

He nodded. Limber and graceful, she slid out from underneath him and rolled off the table. When she was upright, she slipped under his arm and took his weight, helping him to straighten. He forced himself to take a deep breath. Then he kissed her.

She murmured, and he drew her close, relishing the feel of her naked body against his. At last, with obvious reluctance, she pulled away. “Let me get the vial of oil,” she said. “You need a back massage to loosen those muscles, especially after the stretching exercises from earlier and—you know.” Unexpectedly, her face turned dark red.

“I won’t say no,” he said. He stroked her cheek, inexpressibly delighted at the blush. Delighted with everything about her. “Xanthe, I love you.”

She grew very still, her eyes, full of that great, shining heart of glass, fixed on him. When she made as if to say something, he touched her lips with two fingers and shook his head with a smile. Just because he felt the need to tell her how he felt didn’t mean that she should feel the need to reciprocate.

He went into the other room and eased down onto the bed to lay on his aching back with a muffled groan. A few moments later, she joined him.

He loved watching her walk across the room nude. Her breasts were reddened by his attention, and the black silken triangle between her legs glistened with moisture. Her body was sleek and powerful, like a panther’s, and despite the shyness she had shown to him in various other ways, she had no body shyness at all and she moved with complete, athletic confidence that he found incredibly sexy. His cock stirred as he watched her; he was so hungry for her, he was already beginning to stiffen again.

She had gathered up their clothes and she set them on the floor by the bed. Then she took a small vial of oil and poured some into the palm of her hand. Her gaze flew involuntarily to his groin, and he clenched his teeth on another laugh as she flushed pink all over.

“Oh gods, please do,” he growled.

She scolded, “I’m supposed to rub your back!”

He loved it when she scolded him. He grasped her knee, gently. “My back is perfectly fine while I’m lying down. It can wait. It’s everything else that feels urgent right now.”

She looked at him, stricken laughter in her gaze, and he could see that she was tempted.

“After we work on your muscles a bit.”

He gave her a lazy, one-sided, calculating smile. “Very well, but I won’t roll over until you give me a kiss.”

He watched her gaze grow heavy lidded, and his cock stiffened further. “All right.”

She bent over him, her mouth softened, and he raised his head to meet her, kissing her lavishly, feeling hunger for her roar to a fever pitch all over again. When she would have pulled away, he grabbed her and yanked her back down, so that she overbalanced and fell on him.

Instinctively she caught herself on his chest, bracing on the hand that had held the palm full of oil. The warm liquid splashed across his torso as her slippery hand slid off his skin, and she sprawled on top of him.

He growled deeper, an arm wrapped around her neck as he plunged hectically between her lips. While he fucked her mouth with his tongue, he rubbed his chest with a hand until it was slick with oil, then he palmed her breast, that high, firm luscious mound of flesh. She moaned, the shaken sound vibrating in his mouth.

The oiled, slick friction of their bodies drove him out of his mind. He bit her neck, suckled at her ear, sank both fists into her hair and muttered, “Climb on top.”

The glazed look was back in her eyes, arousal shimmering out of her flesh in waves of velvet heat. He held her by the hair down to him, while she straddled his hips with hers. She groped for his cock blindly; when she took hold of him, she brought his tip to her entrance and sank down, down, sheathing him again in that tight, wet fist.

She was off balance, bent over, her weight on her elbows, but he could not seem to make his fingers loosen from her hair. It was uncivilized, possessive in the extreme. It was either unlike him or it was the truest manifestation of who he was becoming with her.

He hissed against her lips, “Fuck me, just like this.”

She groaned and obeyed, her hips moving on him in a primitive rhythm that he met with upward thrusts, spearing into her with cock and tongue, blind to everything but the need to enter her, enter her. She sobbed for breath, the jagged puffs of breath against his face as erotic as anything they had done together.

Her face was reddened; tears streaked her eyes, and strands of her hair were plastered to her damp face and neck. “Gorgeous, gorgeous,” he said into her mouth. “You gorgeous woman.”